A Day to Forget

This unique building rises above The Mission, standing alone, outlined against our blue skies. What is it? A training facility for the SFFD. It is hard, from street level, to get a good enough angle on it to photograph it properly, but I wanted to at least introduce it to you, dear readers from places elsewhere on the planet.

Unlike most of the houses in our city, this building is made of brick. So many of our houses are wooden Victorians, lovingly restored by owners who can sell them for over a million dollars each whenever they wish, even when the market is weak. But that large wooden housing stock is vulnerable to fires, especially in the afternoon, when our winds typically blow in from the Pacific to our west.

I've seen enough of these fires that I am grateful that the SFFD has a training facility, even if it is made of brick.





Meanwhile, not to complain, but today was a miserable Saturday. The kids are all sick or injured or both. Poor Aidan with his sprained wrist in a brace, aching, his shoulder and neck and head hurting, his lips cut and his braces broken from the force of the fall, his temple bruised and his headaches not responding to medication, woke up with the same painful coughing cold that first hit his little sister, and then his little brother.

Neither boy had his normal voice, just deep, raspy croaks, plus occasional fevers, red faces, and a lot of complaints. It's very hard to contain three young, active children in a small apartment all day. That's not a complaint; it's just the truth.

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Black and Blue Friday

If I watched TV, I would probably know why today, the day after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday, but I don't so I don't. Wikipedia informs me the term has been traced back to the '70s, and apparently referred to the heavy traffic on the nation's streets this "first day of the Christmas shopping season."

Was that a reference to the air pollution, that back in the leaded-gas days, turned city air black?

Or is it referring to the hope of retailers that they will be "in the black." as opposed to the "red," the first being profitable, the latter headed toward layoffs, bankruptcy, and ruin.

I've never been tempted by retail business as a career. The sales cycles seem impossibly dependent on an ever-expanding consumer economy, whereby we, the hapless consumers, buy ever more and more junk that promises to break down or become obsolescent well before the next hyped-up sales season arrives.

Nevertheless, and I reveal this in a somewhat chagrined and embarrassed state; we got up slightly early today and drove out to Daly City. There, a confluence of chain store outlets promised sales on many desirable items, none more coveted in this household than a $299 computer. We have three operative computers, and around five non-functioning ones here, but these days, we have five computer users most of the time.

Besides one of the two Macs has a Japanese keyboard and only one of us is fluent in that language. (One other, Julia, aged nine, can write every family member's name in Japanese, however.)

I am not going to name the chain store that held out hope that we might purchase a $299 computer, because I hate the store. By the time we fought through an unbelievable maze of cars unable to find parking (in suburbia!) and my peripheral vision revealed a tiny spot just right for my compact car, I had already developed a bad feeling about all of this.

Why was I driving here, in the meaninglessness of malled America, relatively early on a beautiful sunny winter's day, in search of a "deal?"

Not to worry. We soon got our comeuppance. Walking to the store in question, we encountered a giant line, probably 75 people, waiting to be allowed in one by one. Sales at stores like this one started as early as 4 a.m.! The worst part is, some people camped out and brought their port a potties with them!

Seeing the crazed mob, with lather on their lips and capital hunger in their beady eyes, brought us to a sudden stop. No way we were going to stand in line. As we retreated, I heard a security guard tell a guy near the front of the line, "No way, man, you had to be one of the first five in line to get one of those, dude!"

I'm quite sure he was talking about the computer we (and so many others) had coveted. We returned home, empty-handed, and freaked out by the number of drivers who cut us off, flipped us off, and wagged us off, as we struggled to extract ourselves from this maddened crowd.

***

I've been around long enough to know that a day that starts as this one did is going to get worse before it gets better. Restless, in early afternoon, I suggested we take a walk to the lower Mission. We eventually landed in Thrift Town, where I bought a robe for my little girl. Then, we crossed the street to peruse the merchandise in a one-dollar store.

If it sounds like we were trying to act like consumers, I won't deny it. It's just that we downgraded our search from middle-class appliances to working-class castoffs. There were a few things in our basket when my cell phone rang with one of those messages a parent never wants to receive.

My 13-year-old had fallen in a park and was in terrible pain. His wrist might be broken, and he was holding his head, which had hit the cement hard; also his lips were bleeding. I caught the first taxi home, jumped in my car, and raced to the Emergency Room.

Aidan still seemed dazed. He couldn't remember what had happened, but he said his headache was horrible, he was drowsy, nauseous, faint, and feeling confused. If this was the first time I'd raced to an ER in response to news of a head injury suffered by one of my children, that would be one thing. But this was somewhere around the eighth time for me as a father.

A number of hours later, after a wrist X-ray and a cat scan, the doctor emerged with good news -- his wrist is only sprained, and his concussion does not appear to be serious. We have to watch him closely for a few days to be sure, but for the first time since somewhere in the one-dollar store, I feel like I can breathe deeply tonight.

Aidan will wake up very sore tomorrow, but he should be okay. Hopefully, he will not again try to leap over tennis nets, which is what led to these injuries. His feet got tangled in the net and he slammed headfirst into the cement below.

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Wild and Free

This is Thanksgiving Day in the USA, the time we celebrate how the first colonialists survived their initial, bitter winter in the New World. The irony, of course, is that it was the Native Americans who brought food to those Europeans; otherwise, they would have starved. Once the newcomers were better established, they systematically exterminated as many Indians as possible, and white people took over this continent.



So, for many of us, this is a bittersweet holiday. It is my personal favorite meal of the year, because I love to cook turkey with stuffing. I'm grateful that my ancestors arrived after the slaughter of natives was done, though the fact that there is no blood on our hands does not make our common history here all that more palatable.

My youngest suggested that today could be renamed "Giving Thanks." Maybe then Americans could look beyond all that delicious turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing, gravy, brussel sprouts, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, sweet potatoes, nuts and whipped cream to contemplation of our position in the world...a position based on dominating global resources at the point of a gun.

I celebrate Thanksgiving as heartily as the next person; I'm the domestic type, who loves to cook. I love my family, and want them all to be happy and well-fed.

But, I also love this planet, and the billions of poor who have neither enough to eat nor a safe place to sleep. It would be a truly great feeling to give thanks that everyone on earth, not just us, had a delicious meal tonight in a warm house, surrounded by loved ones.

One earth, after all.

(Way) Down the Pecking Order

Today, I started wondering, for maybe the thousandth time, about the effect of birth order on how children develop. Since I have gotten to go through this movie twice, each time with samples of three, I've begun to form a few ideas of my own. Nothing you read from hereonout is in any way scientific or backed up by any scientific evidence that I am aware of.

But I suspect what I am about to express is more than coincidental.

In both of my three-children clusters, several patterns have become clear. The oldest child feels a responsibility to be bossy, particularly toward the youngest of the set, which, in our case, happens to be the odd gender out.

(With my first family, the birth order was two girls, then a boy. In my second family, it was two boys, then a girl.)

My oldest son benefited from the influence of his older sisters in many ways, including how to develop solid study habits. He excelled as a result of their training and became Valedictorian of his high school class. My oldest daughter is driven to achieve, aware of the enormity of life's challenges, and capable of some of the most brilliant writing I have read from her generation. Her little sister, but still my first son's big sister, is an incredible synthesizer, an accomplished writer, a math genius, and the social glue for the family.

In the second group, my #2 son, and #1 oldest kid this time around is bossy, brilliant, empathic, athletic, sweet and capable of bossiness that would make his oldest sister seem like the good witch of the west. Why do boys have to act so mean?

Me? Back in the 50's, I was a very mean big brother, to my enduring shame. But as I watch my 13-year-old son, I have the eerie sense that all of this behavior is rooted in our genes. It's as if we are programmed to try and help our younger siblings survive, even if it means acting like a royal asshole. My little big boy teaches his younger brother basketball in way that somehow confirms both their roles.

Meanwhile, the little guy, whether he gets into any JV basketball games or not, is embarking on yet another Medieval history book. When it comes to college, his time will arrive, but he will never, ever, stop loving what his big brother has done for him.

Meanwhile, my youngest child, my third daughter, sometimes feels lonely. The boys are not always friendly to her, nor do they often share her interests. Therefore, as her parent, my job is complex. If any reader has guidance or suggestions, they will gratefully be received. I keep wanting to tell her that the best is saved till last.

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Lives of Writers

So, what is the definition of a writer?

One who writes.

BTW, why do writers write?

Because they have to. A common joke, self-deprecatory of course, made by many writers is "I couldn't do anything else."



Joke or not, I suppose this description applies to me, partially. Though I also write because, to me, it is fun, and because it is the easy part of any job for me. I've managed marketing, fundraising, HR, customer support, analytics, membership, production, design, and many other departments or divisions of the companies that have employed me. I've worked a lot on branding, corporate identity, and business strategy.



But what turns me on is to write and to edit. For most of the past 20 years, I've edited far more articles than I have written. Helping somebody else achieve their potential as a writer; helping them find their voice -- that is an editor's pleasure.

As a supposed math whiz whose parents hoped I would become an actuary, I found out very quickly what the real math whizzes were like, and trust me, I wasn't one of them.



After math, I tried all sorts of majors. Economics and English Literature were hot ones, for a while. But it was my seventh and final choice -- Journalism -- that is listed on my B.A. from the University of Michigan, 1969.



So, since my very first published article, 41.5 years ago, I've been clear on my own calling. I am meant to write, to tell stories, and also to midwife the stories of others.



When I am gone, I hope the iceberg of my work becomes visible, not for the sake of personal glory, but for my childrens' sake.



The visible tip (10%) is my published work. The greater part was published under the names of others. And that makes me very, very happy. Because the work of those many others has been great!

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Plastic R Us

Near the end of his terrific book, The World Without Us, author Alan Weisman, considers how electromagnetic waves emitted by our broadcasts and telecasts will be traveling out through the universe until the end of time -- not human time, not even planetary time, but the Big Bang's successor's time.

If the universe started with a Big Bang, from which it still is expanding, I wonder if it will eventually implode, contracting at ever-increasing rates until all stars and planets, all matter, simply compresses back into, what, a primordial black hole? Weisman doesn't address that question, but he does contemplate what an alien intelligence would make of an episode of I Love Lucy, floating far beyond our galaxy.

That alien being would be capable of tracing the wave back to earth, assuming the planet was still intact, but humans would by then presumably have perished. Reading his book is a reminder that extinction for our species is as certain as death is for us as individuals. We never were going to make it here, eternally. That's probably what gave rise to our religions, as Weisman notes, our collective need to have an idea where our spirits go after shedding their frail, biological containers.

***

Today, the security guard at the unemployment office didn't even look up as visitors arrived. He just grunted and pointed down a short stairway, as if to look up at us, the unemployed, might leave him cross-eyed.

In America, land of the Puritan work ethic, there are only two states for an adult -- employed or unemployed. The employed always know where they are going and why. They are on a tight schedule, and are often grumpy as a result.

The unemployed drift here and there, noticing things they never had time to notice before. Who knew there was an alley behind that row of houses? Who knew that a young couple live in the loft above the garage next door? Who knew just how many cats visited my yard each day, one by one. Oliver still comes to check in, but there quite a few others.

Rather than drive, I now walk everywhere I can. In light of a back sprain I've somehow developed, my choices are to either lie down flat, sit bolt upright in a hard chair, or stand.

Navigating around my neighborhood, I start to run into more familiar faces. There are the employed, in their hurried, harried state; and the unemployed, who look sort of lost in space.

Me, what do they make of me? Is he going somewhere or is he aimless? Why does he take so many pictures? Maybe he's a spy. One Latino guy asked me if I was making a record of graffiti in order to help identify the perpetrators. "It's terrible what they do, those young guys," he said.

He looked a bit disappointed when I answered, no, I wasn't trying to catch any perpetrators, just collect examples of what the streets were saying to me. Trash, graffiti, flowers -- they are all the same in one way and that is that they are part of The Mission's story.

Once humans perish, like our broadcasts, our trash will remain. For longer than we were here, the plastics of the past half-century will clog the oceans and rivers and hills and valleys of the planet. Even that exfoliant you use every morning is most likely filled with polymers that wash down the drain into the sewer and into the waterways -- threatening marine life. Look on the label to find out.

There are alternatives.

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Stories From Music

It was an afternoon of Debussy, Brahms, Chopin and Bach; Grieg, Faber and Bock. Since in this space I usually quote Dylan or other modern artists, and since my musical tastes, to the casual observer, run the narrow gamut from blues to rock to pop to country, I should probably disclose that in my childhood I studied classical piano.



My teachers introduced me to Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach. Of course, it was Mozart that I loved. So much so that when I was bedridden at age eleven, I tried to compose classical music. Alas, all of that work is lost -- when I became a teenager I realized this was not at all cool, in Bay City, Michigan -- so I destroyed the evidence.



Not to worry. I am quite sure that nothing of any value was lost to humanity. I was just playing around, much as I did with "All Star Baseball," or my other fantasy worlds.

Still, today, listening to my (reluctant) 11-year old son and my (exuberant) nine year old daughter playing serious music at their recital, I was reminded of the power of classical music. I do not often listen to it, but when I do, I am invariably moved, transformed from the present to a place that feels more like the essence of eternity. At the opera (which, in America, attracts a bigger audience than baseball!); or at the symphony, or at great theatrical plays, I am always humbled by the narrative skill of those who create these productions, so much more elaborate, in form and substance, than the work of those of us who are paltry writers, story tellers of the first degree only.

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